A Burnsville man with a laundry list of previous felony charges was sentenced to seven years in prison for defrauding a California electronics company, said acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson on Monday.
Thomas Thanh Phẩm, 53, also was ordered to pay more than $2.9 million in restitution.
“Fraudsters have flocked to Minnesota for far too long,” Thompson said in a statement. ““Pham is no exception. He is a serial fraudster who has demonstrated that he will not stop until he is stopped. Thanks to the hard work of law enforcement, for the next 84 months, Pham will be where he belongs — in prison.”
According to a press release, between 2019 and 2020, Pham defrauded a California based electronics manufacturing company out of more than $1.2 million by claiming he could broker multi-million dollar contracts for the business.
Pham asked the company to pay a “deposit bond” of $1,278,000. The company did so, believing it would receive millions of dollars for its repair services. As part of his ploy, Pham sent an initial delivery of 20 samples of electronic devices that supposedly needed repairs. The victim company did not know that the devices were stolen property.
When the victim company asked questions about the deal that was made, Pham did not deliver as promised and offered excuses. Although he had promised to keep the deposit in a refundable escrow account, Pham instead used the money.
Pham’s first criminal conviction was more than 32 years ago, Thompson said.
He has been convicted of the following:
• Felony Theft of Property, in which Pham unlawfully used a false identity in order to fraudulently purchase a $49,000 car.
• Felony False Statements for Property, in which Pham knowingly made false statements to fraudulently purchase a vehicle valued at more than $20,000.
• Felony Unlawful Possession of Fraudulent Identification, in which Pham knowingly possessed identification documents of a victim without permission for purposes of defrauding the victim.
• Felony Securing Execution of Document by Deception, in which Pham attempted to pass a forged check.
• Multiple felony check forgeries.
• Conspiracy to commit wire fraud, a federal fraud conviction in Texas in which Pham used the identities of victim companies to defraud victims out of $1.9 million by deceiving them into shipping high-dollar electronics and computers.
After the sentencing, the judge immediately remanded Pham into custody saying it “was too dangerous and too risky” to the public for Pham “to remain at liberty.”
This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the FBI.
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